I was thinking of a round trip Berlin - Amsterdam during an upcoming travel to Europe. It looks like only KLM and Easyjet fly nonstop between those cities, so I am surprised that Lufthansa doesn't. Any particular reason for that? Thanks in advance for any replies.

A few years back, LH used to have hubs/focus cities in several other German cities (HAM, TXL, DUS, probably more???), but chose to centralise mainline operations to FRA and MUC, and leave the rest to Germanwings and Eurowings.

Lufthansa never really built much of an operation in Berlin. They purchased Pan Am's Internal German Services which connected TXL with the major former West German cities, but never added very many other routes. Now only Frankfurt and Munich are left, with places like Stuttgart and Dusseldorf served by Eurowings.

LVICS wrote:

I was thinking of a round trip Berlin - Amsterdam during an upcoming travel to Europe. It looks like only KLM and Easyjet fly nonstop between those cities, so I am surprised that Lufthansa doesn't. Any particular reason for that? Thanks in advance for any replies.

It would be a waste of valuable slots at AMS. Until COVID, one would be lucky if one would be able tp get enough slots. Given that LH needs to have multiple daily for MUC and FRA, surrendder two slots for Berlin would be a waste and seriously impact LHs position at AMS. Moreover, there is not much O&D traffic between Berlin and Amsterdam (most of the passengers KLM transport connect at AMS). If one needs to travel to Berlin, the train is quicker and more relaxing, or one would take a car.

KL operates up to 7 flights per day between the cities. Easyjet 4. There are trains which with one stop link Amsterdam to Berlin in roughly six and half hours. Seems to me like a lot of capacity in fact.

LJ wrote:

LVICS wrote:

I was thinking of a round trip Berlin - Amsterdam during an upcoming travel to Europe. It looks like only KLM and Easyjet fly nonstop between those cities, so I am surprised that Lufthansa doesn't. Any particular reason for that? Thanks in advance for any replies.

If one needs to travel to Berlin, the train is quicker and more relaxing, or one would take a car.

The train is 6+ hours and automobile is 7 hours I believe.

Transavia used to fly Rotterdam - Berlin but apparently doesn't do so anymore. The route started out as Eindhoven - Berlin but was later moved to Rotterdam and is now entirely scrapped. This means the only airport in the Netherlands with flights to Berlin is now Amsterdam.

It's no surprise as Berlin is perfectly within reach by train and car from the Netherlands and given the long lines for security at Amsterdam airport lately flying isn't really attractive. If you take everything into consideration the train is barely any slower than flying. Lines for security are less bad at the regional airports but like I said, they don't have flights to Berlin. Shame since given the chaos at Amsterdam most Dutch people prefer to fly from the regional airports so they can avoid Amsterdam.

braniff2hav wrote:

LJ wrote:

LVICS wrote:

I was thinking of a round trip Berlin - Amsterdam during an upcoming travel to Europe. It looks like only KLM and Easyjet fly nonstop between those cities, so I am surprised that Lufthansa doesn't. Any particular reason for that? Thanks in advance for any replies.

If one needs to travel to Berlin, the train is quicker and more relaxing, or one would take a car.

The train is 6+ hours and automobile is 7 hours I believe.

It's 6:23 from Amsterdam CS, but less if you catch the train in one of the stations on iits way to Berlin. Moreover, you're then in the city center of Berlin, not an airport 27km from the city center (which would tae you 45 minutes by car) However, the real time saver is that you can avoid the queues at AMS and ths doesn't need to be 3 hours before departure if you want to be sure you can catch your flight. for most, the travel time door-to-door will be less by train. However, nothing can beat the car. Most will be able to do door-to-door in just over 6 hours, depending on where in The Netherlands you live or need to go.

BTW apart from leisure I don't see many people travel by air to Berlin. Like the company I work for, many large companies start avoiding or even forbid flying under 500km as this doesn't look good from a PR perspective. Call it greenwashing or whatever, but next to that it doesn't make any sense anymore, there is also a push to reduce these flights as there are, from an environmental point of view, better options. Moreover, the real cost sennsitive traveller takes the bus to Berlin. Much cheaper than flying, though it takes a few hours more.

Not Netherlands but Dutch-speaking: Jetairfly (kind of a ridiculous name come to think of it, any one of those words would do), a TUI subsidiary, had a mini hub in Antwerp with Embraers incl service to Berlin which was extremely handy. Two of the nicest cities in Europe. I guess it didn’t work out alas. Indeed, as an aside, Antwerp is currently completely closed to all air traffic for at least a whole month to do work on the runway, couldn’t even land my PA-28 there this weekend for an aviation enthusiast fair in the terminal.

What about a lttle detour via MAD?! MAD is not only a beautiful city, but AirEuropa serves MAD to AMS with B787...

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/ux1091

LVICS wrote:

I was thinking of a round trip Berlin - Amsterdam during an upcoming travel to Europe. It looks like only KLM and Easyjet fly nonstop between those cities, so I am surprised that Lufthansa doesn't. Any particular reason for that? Thanks in advance for any replies.

Have LH or EW ever flown this route?

LVICS wrote:

I was thinking of a round trip Berlin - Amsterdam during an upcoming travel to Europe. It looks like only KLM and Easyjet fly nonstop between those cities, so I am surprised that Lufthansa doesn't. Any particular reason for that? Thanks in advance for any replies.

MikeSYR wrote:

Have LH or EW ever flown this route?

Until AB's demise this route was split between AB and KL, and there seems to have been very litte room for a third airline on this route back then.

I think EW would have / wanted to fly to lots of places ex-BER once operations would consolidate there, but the delays in the opening of BER prevented that.

Sources from 2015 about their plans to make BER their second hub besides DUS: https://skift.com/2015/10/19/lufthansa-eyeing-berlin-as-its-new-low-cost-european-hub/ and https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-lufthansa-eurowings-idUKKCN0SD1BP20151019

Once AB went under a mad scramble ensued for the former AB slots, routes, and associated market share, and U2 clearly won out at BER: https://skift.com/2017/10/30/easyjet-finalizes-46-million-deal-for-a-piece-of-bankrupt-air-berlin/

It seems that EW wasn't allowed to take that "lead" role in BER due to antitrust concerns on the part of the regulator: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_17_5244

PatrickZ80 wrote:

Transavia used to fly Rotterdam - Berlin but apparently doesn't do so anymore. The route started out as Eindhoven - Berlin but was later moved to Rotterdam and is now entirely scrapped. This means the only airport in the Netherlands with flights to Berlin is now Amsterdam..

I flew Maastricht - Berlin with Eurowings a few years ago also.